By Tom Crawford
News Editor

Talking issues and meeting constituents State Sen. Bill Ingebrigtsen, left, talked over papers given him moments before by Jerel Nelsen, Staples Economic Development Authority director, at a Saturday morning town hall session hosted by Ingebrigtsen and State Rep. Mary Ellen Otremba. At right, Otremba listened as a constituent talked to her following the session, the first of four joint meetings held Saturday in Todd County.

More than a dozen peopled turned out Saturday morning for a town hall session with two Staples area state legislators.

 

The state's budget woes have dominated all other issues in the 2009 Legislative session. Sen Bill Ingebrigtsen and Rep. Mary Ellen Otremba told the people who came to the Lakewood Health Hospital's education room for the Saturday session.

"We have three different budgets we are working on," Otremba, the District 11B representative in the House, noted.

Ingebrigtsen said the state's senators have "finally received the bigger

Staples World photos by Tom Crawford

departmental budgets to work with," the District 11 Senator from Alexandria expressing in his voice a slight bit of frustration at the timing.

 

The 8 a.m. Saturday session at Staples was the first of four meetings in Todd County (Staples, Clarissa, Long Prairie and Grey Eagle) and one in Douglas County (in Carlos) that were scheduled on Saturday.

Otremba noted the state in the past has seen several tough budget setting sessions, including her personal experience in 2003. None have been like 2009, she said. "It was a difficult time in 2003, but this is very much worse. Back in the early 1980s baby boomers were willing to buy things. Today, they are removing their pensions and not spending."

The state's 2009-10 projected budget deficit, with estimates ranging from $4.8 to over $6 billion, is just a part of the legislature's dilemma. Setting budgets for the various state agencies and departments is another part of the puzzle, as is attempting to keep the state entitlement programs, (including Social Services, Medicare payments to nursing homes and others) under budget restraints.

Neither legislator wanted to utter the words 'tax increase' but that was on everyone's minds. Otremba indicated a willingness to change the state's income tax structure to place a 10 to 12 percent burden on the state's wealthiest people. "(Jesse) Ventura changed that," she

said in 2001, reducing the income tax bite on highest incomes to around 6 to 7 percent. "Those earning over $400,000 income should be paying more," Otremba said.

Ingebrigtsen and others mentioned that those higher income people are often employers and that taxing them more will not encourage hiring and will likely drive them out of state.

Regarding energy Sen. Ingebrigtsen said, he was not a believer in global warming. He's concerned because he's seeing rural electric rates going up. In Douglas County, he said, local electric co-ops raised their rates 10 percent last year, 10 percent this year and another 10 percent expected next year. He said much of that cost is due to global warming measures.

Rural vs. metro issues often unite both Otremba and Ingebrigtsen, the senator said. Nancy Judd, from Sylvan Shores area, told them she has trouble offering her business services from her home as she does not have high speed internet.

Jerel Nelsen from the Staples EDA mentioned that Staples, in cooperation with Consolidated Telephone and West Central Telephone co-ops, has been working to bring high speed and wireless connections to an area surrounding the city. "The co-ops and small telco's have far exceeded what Qwest and other large providers have done," Nelsen said, in this regard.

Dale Self, formerly of Staples now living near Pillager, had a complaint. He said he has worked the past several years in North Dakota and knows at least 12 or more people who have the same problem. They live in Minnesota, work in North Dakota, and have to pay income taxes in both states. "I paid $700 in North Dakota and I got it back," he said.

He didn't feel he should have to pay both and wait months for a refund. He thinks there are as many as "350 people altogether who work out there and live in Minnesota," he said. That number is down now due to the oil rigs shutting down, he added.

Barb Peterson, Lakewood Health System board member, said she had a "laundry list" of items she wanted the legislators to know about. Among them she wanted the legislators to seek a legal cap on medical malpractice settlement amounts. "We also need you to support Critical Access hospital designation and Rural Health Clinics," she said, both criteria for reimbursement for rural hospitals.

Twenty-one people attended the Long Prairie meeting later on Saturday morning.

Voters there were also eager to voice their concerns, although many of the topics were not ones that could be dealt with by the Minnesota Legislature.

No city officials, no county commissioners, and no one from Long Prairie EDA or the Chamber or the Commercial Club attended the Long Prairie town hall meeting.